I'm in Portland, ME, on the 1st leg of my trip home from the Freeman Patterson & Andre' Gallant workshop in Kingston, New Brunswick. It's going to take a few days to catch up with PADs after seven days of no internet (nor TV nor newspapers). The border crossing inspector asked if I had bought anything in Canada - to which I truthfully replied "only a can of bug spray" (those black flies were nasty).
Shot shortly after sunrise on a cloudy/rainy morning. The first shot (at sunrise) had a shutter speed of about 10 seconds with the lens wide open. Not a lot of available light. Here it had brightened up about a stop.
This was one of my daily critique imaqes (3 per day) - the first of my 3 images on day #1. The critique summary was "yummy" which I was subsequently told was Freeman's top rating (true or not, I don't know). He uses the word sparingly since I heard it only 2-3 times all week.
I owe him a quote to be added with my workshop photo (they produce an album and a poster using one photo from each of the 16 participants plus one by each of the instructors. I'm currently planning to send - "Truly beautiful images are born in the heart and not in the camera" - which expresses my feelings about photographic art. Made that up during the drive from Kingston to Portland.
The course is totally focused on "visual design". Since this image is what I normally shoot, I took it and submitted it for the first day to find out how & why my "style" did (or did not) conform to the principles espoused by Freeman. He talked about things that he liked about it & finished with "yummy" but I missed the direct connection/relationship to the principles (but got plenty later as the week progressed). After this one I concentrated on images where I needed no translation from the image to the principles - sort of mechanical at this stage as in this image - http://www.pbase.com/image/79911041 - (tecnically perfect but with NO HEART)